Jorge Garcia Takes us to Alcatraz

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We visit the set of the new J.J. Abrams-produced series and talk to star Jorge Garcia about re-teaming with several Lost producers on a new island.

By Eric Goldman

Premiering tonight on FOX, Alcatraz tells the story of what happens when, one-by-one, a large group of inmates from the infamous San Francisco-island prison, who vanished in the 1960s, begin re-appearing in the present – having not aged a day.

Alcatraz shares a ton of connections to Lost, including the involvement of executive producer J.J. Abrams, EP/frequent director Jack Bender and several other key writers and producers. And then of course, there's the island setting and the presence of Jorge Garcia. Garcia, known to Lost fans for his iconic role as Hurley, plays Diego "Doc" Soto, an Alcatraz expert. Soto is recruited to work alongside SF detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) and secretive government agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) to track down the Alcatraz inmates, and discover the how and why of their amazing vanishing act/reappearance.

This fall, I was among a group of journalists who visited the set of Alcatraz. On the set that serves as Rebecca, Hauser and Doc's high-tech Alcatraz-based headquarters, Garcia spoke about Alcatraz and the Lost connective tissue in the series.

Question: So when you got the call from JJ Abrams about doing a show involving an Island and mysterious events, did you think there was some weird, surreal deja vu going on?

Garcia: It was interesting going from one island to another, for sure. There was awhile where JJ would tell me about different things… at the Emmys or we'd meet up at the Upfronts. Like when I was there [at the Upfronts] doing press for the Lost finale, he was there doing stuff for the beginning of Undercovers at the time. Then he would always have moments where he'd be like, "Listen, before you agree to do anything, tell us. Because we really would want to work with you again." And this ended up showing up and becoming real, and here I am. I'm pretty confident that whatever Bad Robot brings, I'd probably be interested in doing it.

Question: It seems like this would be the Doc's dream come true, getting to hunt down actual Alcatraz inmates.

Garcia: It is. I think it is definitely his dream come true on paper. But when he has to start dealing with the reality of how… When you have that fantasy about how cool it would be to be a pirate and to live in that time period, you've got to realize being a pirate or being attacked by pirates probably really sucked. And it's not as romantic as it seems when you see it in the movies. So I think it's kind of like that. The idea of doing it was really something he was excited about, but now that he's in it, he's kind of discovering this is really freaking dangerous. That's what we're trying to do here.

Garcia: He's basically the foremost Alcatraz expert. He's written at least four books on the thing, and he has PhDs in criminology or criminal history, and Civil War history too -- I don't know when exactly that's going to be a part of it! But that's his main background. We find out pretty early on that there is some kind of tragic thing in his childhood that may have driven him towards this kind of obsession with the criminal type. But that's probably how he got into it.

Question: Hurley always seemed to be a lot of the comedic relief on Lost. Will we see that for Doc on Alcatraz?

Garcia: Well, there is an element in me that does try to find… I think it's very human to find humor in situations. So there's definitely some aspects where I think people will find it funny, even though that's just kind of out of his reality. But it might be kind of funny for people to see from the outside. I don't know if it's going to be to the level like on Lost, there would be a really tense scene and they're like going, "Oh good, Hurley. We can relax a minute." I don't think it's going to be anything like that.

Question: How much of this show would you call a character drama? So much is about Alcatraz and the prisoners, but do we get a lot of insight into your character and all of the other regular characters?

Garcia: The best thing about the way that Bad Robot does procedural stuff and stuff that deals with science fiction elements is they definitely know that none of this mythology stuff would mean anything to anybody if it wasn't happening to people that you cared about. You saw when JJ did that talk where he was talking about Jaws and that people who were copying Jaws were copying the wrong thing. That whole thing, that's definitely something that you see in the work that comes from him and the company and the people who he works with. So yeah, it's definitely a part of the vision of what this show is, that all this crazy stuff is happening but they have to be people that you care about to keep you invested.

Question: How is your character getting along with this team he's on?

Garcia: They're finding their way. There's going to be a mix. There are moments, there are certain things dealing with the relationship with Doc and Rebecca and Hauser -- because sometimes Hauser's very elusive about giving any answers. He seems like he knows more than he's letting us in on. So I think there's some stuff between that. Also, I think they may not always see eye-to-eye on method. But all we have is each other, so we kind of have to make it work.

Question: Not unlike Lost, would you say Alcatraz Island is a character itself on the series?

Garcia: Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, I definitely feel it has a whole different element in the way they shoot these flashbacks and stuff. There's the different look when we go back and see how something that happened in Alcatraz 50, 60 years ago has an influence on what's going on in present day. Yeah, Alcatraz definitely has its own thing going on.

Alcatraz premieres Monday, January 16th at 8pm on FOX.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @EricIGN.